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Facts are stubborn things. You're gun is many times more likely to kill or injure you or your family than save them.

Yes facts are stubborn things, your opinion is not a fact. http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/stats.html http://ericwalczak0.tripod.com/id10.html The facts appear to be that a gun in the home (in the U.S) is ~10 times more likely to be used in saving a life thant in killing orinjuring the owner or a member of his houshold.

That doesn't apply to the described scenario: in the described scenario, the attacker already has his gun pointed at the victim, whereas the statistics apply to every type of attack, including with fists. If you try and pull a gun while the attacker has the gun trained on you, your chances of being shot are very high.

"Taser is not serious enough? Or did you mean lethal?"

Tasers are easy to block or deflect and do nothing against someone with any sort of shield such as a chair. A blanket, rug, mat, sheet or umbrella can stop one. A Taser is also a lesser DETERRENT than a gun. Risking getting zapped is trivial next to risking death.

Note that most defensive use of firearms does not involve actually firing them.

http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/kleck2.html

http://www.nraila.org/ArmedCitizen/

The Brennan-monster delivers.

See here:http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/kleck2.html

Actually, it's their knowledge of guns that gives me some comfort. The people you see commenting about firearms here on Slashdot are the very last sort of people you're going to see committing a massacre, are the ones most likely to successfully use a firearm in a defensive situation, and least likely to shoot someone by accident. I'd rather have one of them holding a gun on me than you. At least, if I get shot it'll be because they had a good reason to shoot me, not because they pulled the trigger by accident.

You, on the other hand, are someone who by his own admission, knows nothing of what he is talking about, knows nothing of what is being discussed, and has expressed fear and loathing of what is, after all ... only a machine. A gun is not an object worthy of such an emotional response, any more than your car or your refrigerator. Keep in mind that our nation was founded by people who saw the value of such machines, and in fact our freedoms were secured because they used those weapons well.

Now, I don't own a gun, either ... but I acknowledge that guns are power, and as such may ultimately be the only form of power We the People have when the political process fails us completely (that is unavoidable, we all know it, the Founders knew it: it is only a matter of when.) In the meantime, I'm glad there are people out there who aren't cops, professional soldiers, or crooks, who own firearms and know how to use them. As I said, guns are power and I see no reason why one side should have all of it. Neither would you, if you were to look at the situation a little more dispassionately.

As an initiation into the world of firearms and defensive gun usage, I would recommend that you to check out the writings of one Gary Kleck. Here's another article. I'm sure you can Google for more (those are just the top few links I found by typing his name.)

It's eye-opening stuff, and he has the math and the numbers to back it up. I guarantee it will thoroughly upset your worldview, but sometimes the truth hurts.

This is a good start: Gary Kleck

After one grand jury failed to indict Goetz, a white, middle-class victim of a previous armed robbery, for shooting and critically wounding several African-American teenagers whom Goetz said had threatened him with a sharpened screwdriver on a subway car, the New York prosecutor submitted the case to a second grand jury, which did indict Goetz. Goetz was acquitted of all charges except illegally carrying the handgun he had used to defend himself, and served jail time on those gun charges.

Borrowed from here: http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/indefnra.html

The bar has been raised. You now have to kill all involved, including witnesses, and either do it in a place without surveillance or you have to destroy the surveillance data, and then kill anyone who could attest to the destruction of the surveillance data.

Granted, Goetz did not follow the laws for carrying a handgun, and I don't know what those are. I would guess that they vary from state to state, and are very complicated, and even if you legally shoot someone, a) its not an easy task. Some people never get used to killing other people, despite the practice. b) Its not a cut and dry thing, and the odds are much greater that you will have legal problems being the victim vs being the criminal.

The Constitution calls for a well regulated militia. Welcome to the "well regulated" part of that particular edict.

Even if you were properly interpreting that phrase (which you are not, as other repliers have pointed out), it doesn't negate the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." -- Constitution of the United States, Amendment II

"A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed." -- J. Neil Schulman

In the second example, would you claim that it means the government can tell you what books you can and cannot own? (That book has too many pages! We need to outlaw those assault books! They're too dangerous to allow the average citizen to own!)

If I said that *no* home invasions were prevented by gun ownership last year, it would be just as valid a claim.... And you just make that half up as you go along as well.

He's not making it up; the "official" number is approximately 2.5 million "defensive gun uses" per year. Yes, he should have backed up his claim; he didn't, so I will. That link goes to a site with numerous citations from the National Self Defense Survey (conducted by Florida State University criminologists in 1994). Further, Handgun Control International, in association with the Clinton Justice Department, tried to discredit the study. Their findings supported the NSDS study, and in one marvelous paragraph even suggested that the study might dramatically understate the truth:

"Because respondents were asked to describe only their most recent defensive gun use, our comparisons are conservative, as they assume only one defensive gun use per defender. ...Inclusion of multiple DGUs reported by half of the 19 NSPOF respondents increases the estimate to 4.7 million DGUs."

Further, other criminologists reviewed the study; self-avowed gun-control advocate Marvin Wolfgang, considered by many to be the foremost criminologist in the country, said of the study:

"I am as strong a gun-control advocate as can be found among the criminologists in this country. If I were Mustapha Mond of Brave New World, I would eliminate all guns from the civilian population and maybe even from the police....The reason I am troubled is that they have provided an almost clear cut case of methodologically sound research in support of something I have theoretically opposed for years, namely, the use of a gun in defense against a criminal perpetrator. ...I have to admit my admiration for the care and caution expressed in this article and this research. Can it be true that about two million instances occur each year in which a gun was used as a defensive measure against crime? It is hard to believe. Yet, it is hard to challenge the data collected....The Kleck and Gertz study impresses me for the caution the authors exercise and the elaborate nuances they examine methodologically. I do not like their conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault their methodology. They have tried earnestly to meet all objections in advance and have done exceedingly well."

I don't care for the format of that site; it is emotional and, at times, inflammatory (not to mention gaudy as all hell), but the data cited has survived criticism by some of the toughest and most agenda-minded individuals around. Since the previous poster failed to mention these studies to back up his claims, I've done so here for your perusal.

Heck, comparing states in some cases is pushing it.

Poke around here a bit for info. Last time I looked, the spot check I did on data accuracy made this one of the better sites on the web. It's a bit old at this point, but the trends are there.

Say, have you ever read Kings of the High Frontier?

--grendel drago

Why not try J. Neil Schulman's Pulpless.com? Their titles are printed on demand by the Ingram Book Company, and are available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other resellers, just like a book published through "The Big Guys" (but without the restrictive contract).

Chip H.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but England's crime rate is really not better than the US. Indeed, it is worse in several categories. Furthermore, where our crime rate has shown a decline over the past twenty or so years, the crime rate in the UK has been increasing over the same period; in some categories, our higher rate has become closer to Britain's, and in other categories, Britain's rate has passed ours. (Definition: "rate" refers to crimes per 1,000 people in their population. Yes, I know the US has more crimes; that tends to happen when you have a susbstantially larger population. When comparing apples to apples, though, the truth comes out.)

Don't take my word for it, though--read the US DoJ report on the comparative crime rates between our country and theirs. This report has been scrutinized by activists on both ends of the political spectrum, and has held up to all scrutiny. For other interesting information about Britain's failing attempt at crime control, check out the World Wide Web Gun Defense Clock. Pay particularly close attention to the passage from Marvin Wolfgang.

Incidentally, Britain is considered by the UN to be the second-worst violator of human rights in Europe (Italy is the worst). They routinely violate the rights of the accused, privacy has fallen by the wayside...

...but yeah, the Brits are doing something right.

Sorry, I'll step down off my soapbox now.

"Let me tell you about Florida politicians. I make them. I make them out a whole cloth just like a tailor makes a suit. I get their name in the newspaper, I get them some publicity and get them on the ballot. Then after the election we count the votes and if they don't turn out right, we re-count them and re-count them again until they do."
--Edward G. Robinson to Humphrey Bogart, Key Largo, 1946

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but England's crime rate is really not better than the US. Indeed, it is worse in several categories. Furthermore, where our crime rate has shown a decline over the past twenty or so years, the crime rate in the UK has been increasing over the same period; in some categories, our higher rate has become closer to Britain's, and in other categories, Britain's rate has passed ours. (Definition: "rate" refers to crimes per 1,000 people in their population. Yes, I know the US has more crimes; that tends to happen when you have a susbstantially larger population. When comparing apples to apples, though, the truth comes out.)

Don't take my word for it, though--read the US DoJ report on the comparative crime rates between our country and theirs. This report has been scrutinized by activists on both ends of the political spectrum, and has held up to all scrutiny. For other interesting information about Britain's failing attempt at crime control, check out the World Wide Web Gun Defense Clock. Pay particularly close attention to the passage from Marvin Wolfgang.

Incidentally, Britain is considered by the UN to be the second-worst violator of human rights in Europe (Italy is the worst). They routinely violate the rights of the accused, privacy has fallen by the wayside...

...but yeah, the Brits are doing something right.

Sorry, I'll step down off my soapbox now.

"Let me tell you about Florida politicians. I make them. I make them out a whole cloth just like a tailor makes a suit. I get their name in the newspaper, I get them some publicity and get them on the ballot. Then after the election we count the votes and if they don't turn out right, we re-count them and re-count them again until they do."
--Edward G. Robinson to Humphrey Bogart, Key Largo, 1946

In Victor Koman's Kings Of The High Frontier an aging rocket tinkerer called "Ace" Roberts is building a rocket in his backyard. In this book, several different non-government attempts to reach space actually succeed, but Roberts isn't one of them.

It is available for download for $3.5 on pulpless.com. Recommended!.

----

In Victor Koman's Kings Of The High Frontier an aging rocket tinkerer called "Ace" Roberts is building a rocket in his backyard. In this book, several different non-government attempts to reach space actually succeed, but Roberts isn't one of them.

It is available for download for $3.5 on pulpless.com. Recommended!.

----

I agree with RMS that "pay-per-play" licenses for books, etc. are a Bad Thing. However, RMS and most of the responders to him here implicitly assume that (If This Goes On) we will have no way of getting access to desirable content other than by going through a few mega-media companies who hold all their copyrights under "pay-per-play" terms. This is also, BTW, the view expressed by Jordan Pollack in another recent Slashdot thread.

This seems to me a clearly fallacious assumption. The same sorts of new technologies that enable things like eBooks also enable content creators to do an end run around the mega-media companies if they want to. The availability of Internet publishing and the ability to print and bind a book on the spot in the bookstore, to name two, make it easier to "be your own publisher" and distribute your creations on whatever terms you choose. If you're publishing a book on your Website, for example, it shouldn't be any harder to set up "paper book-like license" terms than "pay-per-play" terms.

For an example of nontraditional publishing taking advantage of new technologies right now, look at Pulpless.com. This is an "online-or-print" venture run by J. Neil Schulman that sells books in digital and paper editions. If enough content creators choose such means of distribution, the big publishers have no recourse: they cannot make money without the creators.

So, if you're a content creator, and you don't want your works distributed under restrictive "pay-per-play" licenses, use (or start!) a publishing company that doesn't use such licenses. If you're a content creator and you agree with RMS, set up your works so that people can click to pay you a buck if they like 'em. (That's one good point RMS makes: micropayment technologies are a Good Thing that should be encouraged, because they expand the distribution options available to content creators).

If you're a content consumer, and you don't like restrictive licenses, don't buy from publishing companies that use them. If you're a content creator and you *do* like restrictive licenses, it is your right to use them-- you, not the consumers, rightfully own the product of your mind. But don't be surprised if your sales languish because of negative consumer reaction to your licensing terms. That's how the free market works: people get what they want, as long as they're willing to put their money where their mouth is.

Besides which, there's plenty of good stuff that is in the public domain and in libraries already. Nobody's going to be doomed to grow up an ignorant schlep if they don't want to, or have the means to, pay publishing companies every time they read a book.

In sum, then, it seems to me that the fears raised on this topic constitute mostly FUD about new technologies combined with the usual groundless fears of "dominance by a few large corporations." We get enough of that nonsense from ignorant mainstream media people already; it's a shame to see it coming from geeks, who ought to know better.